Total federal spending for FY99 was $1.7 trillion; that’s about $3.1 trillion in 2023 dollars. I bring that up because, recently, the guy who shakes hands with thin air released his latest budget proposal for the next fiscal year.It calls for nearly SEVEN TRILLION DOLLARS in federal spending.So, even after adjusting for inflation, the Big Guy’s budget is more than TWICE as big as the federal budget was in 1999.What exactly are taxpayers receiving in exchange for all that extra spending?You’d think that if the government is spending twice as much, that taxpayers would be receiving AT LEAST twice as much benefit… or would see twice as much government service.Are there twice as many federal highways? Is the military twice as strong? Is Social Security twice as solvent?Quite the contrary, actually. The highways are crumbling, the military has grown weaker, and Social Security is set to run out of money in a few years.
Congress is currently debating bills that would ban TikTok in the United States. We are here as technologists to tell you that this is a terrible idea and the side effects would be intolerable. Details matter. There are several ways Congress might ban TikTok, each with different efficacies and side effects. In the end, all the effective ones would destroy the free Internet as we know it.
The crimes are real, the cops are puppets, and the criminals are everywhere.
Child services say that a Pearisburg, Virginia mom can't let her kids—ages 6, 8, and 9—play outside by themselves until they're 13.
Two bills attempting to reduce the power of Internet monopolies are currently being debated in Congress: S. 2992, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act; and S. 2710, the Open App Markets Act. Reducing the power to tech monopolies would do more to “fix” the Internet than any other single action, and I am generally in favor of them both. (The Center for American Progress wrote a good summary and evaluation of them. I have written in support of the bill that would force Google and Apple to give up their monopolies on their phone app stores.)There is a significant problem, though. Both bills have provisions that could be used to break end-to-end encryption.
President Joe Biden has invoked the Defense Production Act and ordered the U.S. military to fly pallets of baby formula into the country from Europe.
Peter Van Doren joins the podcast to talk about the latest issue of Regulation Magazine, which includes discussions about GMO salmon, Section 230, and antitrust suits.
Social worker Ursula Newell-Davis helped kids with special needs for over 20 years.But now Louisiana says she can't start her own service helping special needs kids because, get this, licensing and regulating people like her would put a "burden on regulators.â€Ursula could be helping lots of kids. But she can’t, because “Louisiana wants to limit how many agencies they have to regulate,†she says. “That makes it easy for the state."Easy for this state? Why is that a law?The video above explains.
Alcohol regulators ban beers if they don’t like the labels. Jim Caruso’s Flying Dog Brewery makes beer with names like "Doggie Style" and "Tropical Bitch." Some liquor commissions object. In Colorado he was told, “Pull the beer from the market, or we suspend your license.†In Michigan, the liquor commission called his beer, “detrimental to the health, safety, and welfare of the general public.†“Do you really want to live in a country where government bureaucrats … can censor whatever they don't like?†asks Caruso. “If you want free speech, then you have to respect that in others.†So he sued, but that wasn’t the end of it. Another label of his was just banned for being, “inappropriate … undignified, immodest … bad taste.†What do they consider so offensive? Watch the above video to find out.
